PeerGynt

• PeerGynt 27 Nov 2016 9:02 UTC

  63 points

  0

  on: On the im­por­tance of Less Wrong, or an­other sin­gle con­ver­sa­tional locus

  This is not going to happen unless you deal with the troll

• PeerGynt 3 May 2015 4:12 UTC

  47 points

  in reply to: James_Miller’s comment on: Stupid Ques­tions May 2015

  What is the LessWrong-like answer to whether someone born a male but who identifies as female is indeed female?

  The Lesswrong-like answer to whether a blue egg containing Palladium is indeed a blegg is “It depends on what your disguised query is”.

  If the disguised query is which pronoun you should use, I don’t see any compelling reason not use the word that the person in question prefers. If you insist on using the pronoun associated with whatever disguised query you associate with sex/​gender, this is at best an example of “defecting by accident”.

  What links here?

  • Vaniver's comment on Stupid Ques­tions May 2015 by Gondolinian (3 May 2015 17:59 UTC; 2 points)

Re­quest for Steel­man: Non-cor­re­spon­dence con­cepts of truth

• PeerGynt 28 Nov 2016 5:19 UTC

  15 points

  in reply to: Viliam’s comment on: On the im­por­tance of Less Wrong, or an­other sin­gle con­ver­sa­tional locus

  the tech support doesn’t give a fuck, and will cite privacy concerns when you ask them for more direct access to the database

  Seriously, who are these tech support people? Clearly this database belongs to the owner of less wrong (whoever that is). As far as I can tell, when moderators ask for data, they ask on behalf of the owners of that data. What is going on here? Has tech support gone rogue ? Why do they then get their contract renewed? Are they taking orders from some secret deep owners of LW that outrank the moderators ?

Ethics in a Feed­back Loop: A Parable

• PeerGynt 25 Jul 2014 20:55 UTC

  12 points

  in reply to: Richard_Kennaway’s comment on: Ethics in a Feed­back Loop: A Parable

  Let me just point out that the post was an attempt to discuss ethics in a hypothetical world where certain PUA claims about human psychology are true. I think this is an important question, and I did not want it to degenerate into a discussion about whether the claims themselves are true.

  I tried my best to make the analogy as neutral as possible, by making women the “humans”, describing the PUA strategies as having a real harmful effect on women, and generally making their dislike of PUA strategies seem entirely reasonable.

  I don’t see how the post is tendentious. I don’t think the analogy has any obvious ethical solution, and I am genuinely asking people for insight into what the relevant ethics are in this hypothetical world. I don’t see how I am leading people to give me validation on my views, because I am not even sure what my views are.

• PeerGynt 28 Jul 2014 21:29 UTC

  11 points

  in reply to: Punoxysm’s comment on: Open thread, July 28 - Au­gust 3, 2014

  I’m fairly sure this comment was not exactly intended as a compliment, but I can think of worse insults than having my writing put in the same category as Nick Bostrom. As the author of the first of these parables, even I recognize that these two stories differ very significantly in quality

  The Blue and Green Martians parable was an attempt to discuss a question of ethics that is important to many members of this community, and which it is almost impossible to discuss elsewhere. The decision to use an analogy was an attempt to minimize mindkill. This did not succeed. However, I am fairly sure that if I had chosen not to use an analogy, the resulting flamewar would have been immense. This probably means that there are certain topics we just can’t discuss, which feels distinctly suboptimal, but I’m not sure I have a better solution.

• PeerGynt 27 Jul 2014 0:51 UTC

  10 points

  on: Ethics in a Feed­back Loop: A Parable

  It’s been a day since this discussion peaked, and I’ve had a chance to think a little bit more about this on a meta-level:

  First of all, having a community built around epistemic hygiene is extremely valuable. Discussions about topics that involve mindkill are incredibly unpleasant, and may make it impossible for such a community to be successful. I therefore fully understand people who want to keep these discussions away from Less Wrong, and I won’t post again on this topic or any other mindkilling topic.

  That said, I think the inability to discuss this rationally and dispassionately is a major problem for society in general, which may contribute to some individuals with abnormal psychology reacting in unpredictable ways. My only view on the object-level question is that low status men get a raw deal, that there is no good solution to the problem, and that PUA is probably very bad ethically. I have natural sympathy for low-status men, but I recognize that I may be biased because I have no experience seeing the situation from a female perspective. The post was an attempt to invite people to help me update my moral beliefs, by hearing from people who do not have those biases. Importantly, this could not have been done on any other website, because they would have been unable to convince me that their moral framework was coherent, that they are being honest about their ethical beliefs, or that they have made a good-faith effort to model low status males as relevant participants in the moral calculus.

  There was some really good discussion in this thread, particularly Skeptical Lurker’s comment, which may have made me aware of a contradiction in my worldview. I will keep thinking about what updates may be necessary. This is exactly the kind of feedback that I was hoping for—changing your mind is a good thing, and it is only possible if we can gave a genuine discussion as rationalists.

  That said, for the Less Wrong community, the cost of these discussions probably outweighs the benefits.

• PeerGynt 25 Jul 2014 21:34 UTC

  8 points

  in reply to: polymathwannabe’s comment on: Ethics in a Feed­back Loop: A Parable

  Those are not my views:

  First of all, I took no position on the truth value of the premises.

  Secondly, I fully recognize that my analogy is a simplified map of a map. It does not accurately represent the full territory.

  The question is whether the aspects of the territory that I have glossed over are important for the resolution of the ethical question. If there are any such aspects, please feel free to point them out. I do recognize that some of the aspects that have been pointed out, such as consent, are important. I have upvoted those comments and attempted to explain why I think you can make the argument that the analogy still has some validity.

• PeerGynt 24 Jul 2013 15:37 UTC

  8 points

  in reply to: Peter Wildeford’s comment on: Why Eat Less Meat?

  A source is “Allison, Richard. “Organic chicken production criticised for leaving a larger carbon footprint.” Poultry World. 1 Mar. 2007”. This article is behind a paywall. I am pasting a table from the article:

  AVERAGE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT FROM POULTRY PRODUCTION (% DIFFERENCE TO CONVENTIONAL) Organic Free range

  Energy use +33% +25%

  Global warming potential (CO2) +46% +20%

  Eutrophication potential +75% +28%

  Acidification potential +52% +33%

  Pesticide use (dose/​ha) −92% +12%

  Note: This article is in a trade publication and could be biased. It is based on an original report which I could not locate, and which apparently has sparse data. Obviously, more research is needed.

  My prior beliefs are not the result of scientific studies, but follow from the following observations:

  (1) To reduce global warming, we need to maximize the number of calories produced per unit of CO2 emission

  (2) The most effective way we can alter that ratio, is by reducing the amount of biochemical energy that is used to power the biochemical processes of farm animals over the course of their lives. This is primarily a function of duration of their lives.

  (3) Factory farming achieves shorter duration, by having the animals grow more quickly

  (4) Another way we can reduce the net amount of CO2 produced per unit food, is by reducing the amount of land used, thus allowing less deforestation.

  (5) Factory farming achieves this by using less land

  (6) I cannot see any other mechanisms that differ between factory farming and organic farming which would have a major net effect on the carbon cycle.

• PeerGynt 15 Jan 2011 7:48 UTC

  8 points

  in reply to: Daniel_Burfoot’s comment on: Simp­son’s Paradox

  The OP’s assertion is true. Stratifying on certain variables can introduce bias.

  Consider that you have a cohort of initially healthy men, and you are trying to quantify the causal relationship between an exposure (eg eating hamburgers) and an outcome (eg death). You have also measured a third variable, which is angina pectoris (cardiovascular disease).

  Assume that the true underlying causal structure, which you are unaware of, is that hamburgers cause cardiovascular disease, which subsequently causes death.

  Now look at what happens if you stratify on cardiovascular disease: In the strata consisting of men who don’t have cardiovascular disease, you will find no cases of death. This will lead you to conclude that in men who don’t have cardiovascular disease, eating hamburgers does not cause death. This is false, as eating hamburgers will cause them to develop cardiovascular disease and then die.

  What you have done in this situation, is stratify on a mediator, thereby “blocking” the pathway running through it. There are also many other situations in which adjusting for a variable introduces bias, but it gets more complicated from here.

  For further information on this I suggest reading an upcoming book called “Causal Inference”, by James Robins and Miguel Hernan, who taught me this material. The first ten chapters are available for free online at http://​​www.hsph.harvard.edu/​​faculty/​​miguel-hernan/​​files/​​hernanrobins_v1.10.9.pdf .

• PeerGynt 21 Aug 2015 21:30 UTC

  7 points

  in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Robert Au­mann on Judaism

  So there is free money to be had by posing as a rabbi and offering a bet to Robert Aumann?

• PeerGynt 2 Jun 2016 5:23 UTC

  6 points

  in reply to: gjm’s comment on: Mak­ing Less Wrong Great Again

  I don’t understand why this comment is downvoted and I want to go on record to say it wasn’t me. I appreciate when people tell me why they downvote my posts.

  I definitely did expect mixed reactions to the original post. I’ll be honest and say that I’m surprised that people keep downvoting it to levels that I associate with malicious trolls, rather than let it stay hidden at −5 which seems appropriate for a failed attempt at humor. But it doesn’t really matter, it would take much more than negative reactions to a joke to stop me from making Less Wrong great again :)

• PeerGynt 5 Nov 2015 18:50 UTC

  6 points

  in reply to: HungryHobo’s comment on: LINK: An ex­am­ple of the Pink Flam­ingo, the ob­vi­ous-yet-over­looked cousin of the Black Swan

  Could you specify whether you want answers as percentage probability, probabilities, odds, or expected number of launches? My answer was intended as a percentage

• PeerGynt 26 Jul 2014 0:53 UTC

  6 points

  on: Ethics in a Feed­back Loop: A Parable

  I want to point out that I, perhaps incorrectly, assumed this thought experiment could be interesting even to the anti-PUA crowd, because it would help them distill their thinking about whether they object to PUA on epistemic grounds (“they have incorrect beliefs about female psychology”) or if they object on moral grounds (“they draw incorrect /​ evil conclusions about the ethical implications of the theory”)

  From the reactions, it is tempting to conclude that most people object to PUA partially on epistemic grounds. However, it is hard for me to understand why a disagreement about facts would lead to such heated debate in a community based around the Litany of Tarski.

• PeerGynt 25 Jul 2014 23:08 UTC

  4 points

  in reply to: polymathwannabe’s comment on: Ethics in a Feed­back Loop: A Parable

  Your translation of the analogy takes the postition that the status dichotomy is a thing. The rest follows from that assumption.

  No, it takes the position that there exist people who believe status dichotomy is a thing, and then explores some of the consequences if this belief were to be true.

  Moreover, status dichotomy is very obviously a lossy compression. For some purposes, this construct will lose so much information as to be useless. For other purposes, the information that is lost by dichotomizing status is not essential, and so it may still be a useful model.

  In order to convince me that dichotomous status is not a useful model when what we are interested in is exploring the ethical issues in this post, you would have to show me a situation where considering a continuous or multidimensional status construct is necessary in order to make an essential point with implications for the correct ethical choice. If you are able to do this, you will have contributed a lot to the conversation, and I will have learned something important.

  Being a pleasant person to be around is beyond a man’s responsibility?

  No, what I meant was that a Martian cannot be held morally responsible for whether he is Green or Blue.

• PeerGynt 25 Jul 2014 19:22 UTC

  4 points

  in reply to: polymathwannabe’s comment on: Ethics in a Feed­back Loop: A Parable

  OK, I really would prefer that this discussion stays on the abstract level, but in order to avoid confusion, I will provide a translation of the intended metaphors:

  Green Martian = Low Status Male

  Blue Martian = High Status Male

  Earthling = Female

  Tickling = Flirting (Including obnoxious strategies such as “negs” and “kino escalation”)

  The moderately painful sting of the tentacles of the Green Martian = Creepiness, Social Awkwardness, etc

  Experimentation on Earthlings (defined in comments) = Sex

  What links here?

  • Richard_Kennaway's comment on Ethics in a Feed­back Loop: A Parable by PeerGynt (25 Jul 2014 20:31 UTC; 20 points)
  • NoSuchPlace's comment on Ethics in a Feed­back Loop: A Parable by PeerGynt (25 Jul 2014 22:30 UTC; 0 points)

• PeerGynt 25 Jul 2014 17:09 UTC

  4 points

  in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Ethics in a Feed­back Loop: A Parable

  In this society, it is generally accepted that tickling is not something that requires consent.

  Even more than the Martians want to tickle humans, they want to carry them away to their mothership to experiment on them. Everyone agrees that experimentation on humans requires their consent. Part of the socially accepted foreplay that sometimes leads to humans giving their consent to be experimented on, consists of the martian tickling the human behind the ear.

• PeerGynt 24 Jul 2013 0:05 UTC

  4 points

  in reply to: Peter Wildeford’s comment on: Why Eat Less Meat?

  I only think factory-farmed meat is the problem. I use “eat less meat” as a shorthand, since nearly all meat is factory-farmed meat.

  Factory-farmed meat converts photosynthetic energy (grass) to food much more efficiently than free-range farming. Factory farming requires less inputs in terms of arable land and water, and emits less CO2. If everyone in the world ate non-factory farmed meat, we would have to cut down the Amazon many times over, thereby drastically reducing earth’s capacity to convert CO2 back to carbohydrates.

  When you decide whether your meat should be factory farmed or not, , there are consequences on two scales that are negatively correlated: Animal welfare and global warming. Which of these scales you give most weight to, will depend on your prior for anthropogenic global warming, on your beliefs about the consequences of global warming, and on the priority you give animals in your aggregation scheme over individuals with moral standing.

• PeerGynt 23 Dec 2015 23:05 UTC

  3 points

  in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Sur­vey: What’s the most nega­tive*plau­si­ble cry­on­ics-works story that you know?

  Hi there, Mac. I’m a Matrix overlord. Can I have my 10 dollars, please?